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Around the Web Digest: Week of July 13

Hello folks. May I present to you the weekly review of the internet’s best (or most interesting) articles and materials for your consumption. If you have something that you want to share for next week, hit me with an email (richard.powis@gmail.com) or on Twitter at @dtpowis.

Check ‘em out after the jump.

By anthropologists:

First and foremost, the big story is the Survey of Academic Field Experiences (also known as #SAFE13), an article published this week on PLOS by authors Kate Clancy, Robin Nelson, Julienne Rutherford, and Katie Hinde. The study finds that a shocking 64 percent of respondents had experienced sexual harassment during fieldwork and 1 in 5 had been sexually assaulted. (You may remember that the preliminary results of this survey were presented at the meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in 2013.) (PLOS)

Daniel Carr wrote about the advantages of using Evernote in anthropological fieldwork. (Wenner-Gren Blog)

John Curran speculated on how vanishing foam (used in the World Cup to mark the distance from ball to wall) has created behavioral change in the ritual of free kicks. (Dr. John Curran)

In the latest episode of AnthroPod, Jessica Lockrem takes us behind the scenes of the editorial offices of Cultural Anthropology, American Anthropologist, and Duke University Press. (Cultural Anthropology)

Heath Cabot discussed the edited volume “Policing and Contemporary Governance: The Anthropology of Police in Practice” with editor William Garriott. (Anthropoliteia)

Fiona Murphy talks about her research on sustainability, in the context of austerity. (Allegra Lab)

Emma Louise Backe wrote on the construction of entirely new worlds in science fiction, the connections between sci-fi and anthropology. (The Geek Anthropologist)

Paul Stoller rounded up some of the best (or worst) things said by ignorant conservatives this summer. (HuffPo)

Somatosphere will be publishing a series of essays on what they call “the collaborative turn,” or the recent rise in interdisciplinarity in medical social sciences. (Somatosphere)

Daniel Lende explored the obstacles that we have in understanding the brain and its functions. (Neuroanthropology)

About anthropology:

We can probably cut back on alcohol-related risky behavior and deaths if we de-stigmatize it and drop the legal drinking age. (CNN)

There is some great anthropological research being done on the placenta right now, but if you want some background, this is a very good overview of its function and importance. (New York Times)

New research suggests that we may share more genes with our closest friends. (NPR)

Many spectators at the art installation “Marvelous Sugar Baby” have missed the point entirely, and – to my mind – have become a part of the installation themselves. But white people gawking at black bodies is nothing new. (Pacific Standard)

Whelp. The Chikungunya virus is confirmed in the United States. Score one for neglected diseases. (Miami Herald)

Weird Al Yankovic’s new music video Word Crimes (a play on Robin Thicke’s infinitely more rapey Blurred Lines) is pretty funny, but ultimately it perpetuates the myth that there is a “right” and “wrong” way to speak English. (Language Log)

New HIV infections in the US are down by one-third in the last decade. (Al Jazeera)

French Arabs demonstrated for Palestine, despite the fact that they were banned. (Al Jazeera)

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in Ukraine carrying half-a-dozen delegates on their way to an AIDS conference in Australia. (Slate)

Here’s an easy to read chart of how different entities feel about each other in the Middle East. (Slate)

In response to Jack Halberstam’s essay on trigger warnings, Robin James offers some perspective on what we mean when we talk about “neoliberalism.” (Cyborgology)

This is how Americans stigmatize (and have always stigmatized) immigrants as public health risks. (Slate)

Rebecca Schuman has a solution to fix peer review: earn the right to publish by reviewing an article in a timely and constructible fashion. (Slate)

For the aid that the continent of Africa receives annually, it may be losing up to six times that in the same period of time. Hence, the world does not aid Africa, but Africa aids the world. (This is Africa)

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Dick Powis is a PhD student in Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, and is also pursuing a graduate certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. His research interests include men and childbirth, prenatal screening technologies, and reproductive health in urban settings in Senegal. Read more at http://about.me/dickpowis.

3 thoughts on “Around the Web Digest: Week of July 13”

Just a thought. Need to be careful about how much a summary does, or doesn’t include. In the case of the article about Tanya Lurhman’s work on schizophrenic voices, the full lead paragraph reads,

“Stanford anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann found that voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic disorders are shaped by local culture – in the United States, the voices are harsh and threatening; in Africa and India, they are more benign and playful.”

suggests that this is yet another, “Culture affects, blah, blah, blah, no duh” sort of article. The news is in the proposition that in the US the voices are threatening, while in Africa or India they are more likely to be playful.